Micro-dating is the new trend helping busy couples carve out time for each other

Small but sweet dates could jazz up your relationship without taking any time out of your day – win-win, right?

The phrase ‘date night’ is bandied around romcoms as often as best friends just happen to fall in love, and dating is made to look as easy as going to a bar and chatting up a stranger.

But, in the real world, dating and being in a relationship takes time, commitment and a lot of patience. So what if we told you there was a new dating trend that would slot into your life so easily, you wouldn’t even notice it happening? (OK, it will require a little more effort than that but it’s as easy as meeting up with a friend for coffee.)

Introducing: micro-dating.

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A dating term developed in the last year, micro-dating means using small snippets of time in your day – snippets that often might be wasted looking at social media on your phone – to instead spend time with your partner. (And if you’re confused by the latest lingo, check out Stylist’s guide to the latest millennial dating terms.)

If you apply micro-dating to your relationship, rather than waking up in the morning, jumping in the shower and then sitting in your towel reading your emails, you’d spend an extra five minutes lying in bed with your loved one.

Or making a fresh coffee in the kitchen and talking about each other’s day.

Micro-dating: Taking small chunks of time and dedicating it to your partner

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It’s not about fully-blown ‘let’s book a posh Italian restaurant and spend three hours staring into each other’s eyes’ dating, but instead taking small chunks of time to appreciate one another in your usual routine.

And micro-dating isn’t just for young, free and single millennials who work hard and play hard. Oh, no. According to a survey by Legal and General, 67% of ‘parent couples’ agreed date nights were really important for their relationship.

One of the suggestions for micro-dating sparked by the survey was for couples to synchronise their lunchtimes and video call each other for a catch-up.

Sounds legit – vote in our poll below and let us know if you’ll be trying it or avoiding it.